Eye Candy But Lacks A Decent Story

Rating: 4/10 (16 January 2015)

When two tectonic plates shift beneath the ocean, they create a tear in the earths crust creating a portal between two dimensions. Monstrous creatures known as Kaiju start coming through the fissure and attacking mankind. Realising that current weaponry isn't effective in bringing a Kaiju down quickly enough, humans work together to come up with new technology to defeat the creatures. This technology comes in the shape of Jaegers...giant robot-like war machines. When the attacks start happening more frequently, a plan to close the tear is devised but this brings about it's own obvious risks. However, it's either that, or the world will be destroyed.
Pacific Rim is an absolute feast for the eyes as it's a truly amazing film for special/visual effects. As a feast for the brain, however....not so much, because when you take away the superb visuals and fight scenes you have a pretty lame film.
Now, I know films like this generally don't have Oscar winning story lines, but sometimes there's something there to keep you interested other than the amazing effects. Not here though, and this is a classic example of movie makers relying more on gorgeous effects than story to win audiences over.
The acting - especially by Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket - is nothing to write home about either and is very cringeworthy at times. It's not just limited to him, though, as a good few of the other main stars' acting is pretty dire.
Also, as I watched the movie, I saw a good few storyline similarities to Independence Day. I can't say anything without spoiling the movie, and you may well think "how the hell do you figure that out?", but after watching it you'll see the similarities between the two. I'm not saying Pacific Rim's a rip-off, but originality goes out the window in this movie too, so to couple that with bad acting and a lame story, you have a very mediocre popcorn action/sci-fi flick...even with all the amazing visuals.
Not bad, but definitely not that good either.